The Fed relief rally, and a correction on Skyworks

Aramco is bypassing the damaged section of the East-West pipeline at Pump Stations 8 and 9, targeting about half its capacity back within days and full capacity in about six weeks, per Bloomberg's reporting — not yet confirmed by Aramco or Saudi's energy ministry directly. That splits Tuesday's and Wednesday's competing estimates roughly down the middle: Energy Secretary Wright's "days" was right for partial capacity, the AP's "three to five weeks" undershot full restoration a little, and the months-long call now looks like the outlier. WTI settled near $102.0, Brent near $104.9, both a touch softer, extending Wednesday's reversal rather than a fresh move.

With the hike itself now a day old, the curve eased across the board — the two-year down 7bp to 4.67%, the five 8bp, the ten 7bp to 4.94%, the thirty 6bp. Stocks rallied broadly: the S&P up 1.14%, the Nasdaq 100 1.73%, the VIX down 12.82% to 15.44, its sharpest one-day drop this week.

AMD rose 6.36%, Nvidia 2.54%, Broadcom 2.29% — a name in Rajen's book, no new reasoning today. No single dated catalyst explains AMD's outsized move specifically; it reads as sector beta rather than company news, and is reported that way rather than reverse-engineered. The semiconductor ETFs were up 2.8 to 3.4% on the day.

Tuesday's recap called Skyworks' 13.6% pop unexplained, and Wednesday's called the -4.9% that followed the move "handing itself back." Neither holds up. Skyworks CEO Philip Brace told press on Tuesday that the Qorvo merger will close by the end of September, has cleared US antitrust, and is only waiting on China's SAMR — a real, dated catalyst the original sourcing pass missed. Wednesday's dip looks more like broad chip-sector weakness that day than a reversal of the Skyworks story specifically. Today Skyworks rose 6.69% to $91.32 and Qorvo 4.86% to $119.51, both above Tuesday's post-pop close and net up roughly 15% since Monday. Correcting the record rather than letting the earlier framing stand.